Common Ground: Is America really in decline?

Cal Thomas is a conservative columnist. Bob Beckel is a liberal Democratic strategist. But, as longtime friends, they can often find common ground on issues that lawmakers in Washington cannot.

CAL: Like the expiration date on cans of food, the United States may be near its sell-by date.

BOB: Why so pessimistic?

CAL: The world no longer respects us, terrorists don't fear us, the border with Mexico has been erased, major cities resemble combat zones, a failure of U.S. Middle East policy, a $17 trillion debt, fewer fathers in the home, overflowing prisons, a sense of entitlement rather than personal responsibility, loss of privacy and threats to the Constitution, a drop in approval of our political institutions ... Need I go on?

BOB: You almost make me want to ask my doctor for Prozac. The problems you outlined are not new. The civil war in Iraq was predictable. The centuries-old conflict among the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds was exacerbated by America going to war against a country whose borders were drawn by the British.

CAL: You're not suggesting the Middle East chaos was caused by the United States?

BOB: Not at all. Many of these crises result from conflicts dating back decades, even centuries. But the rise of Iran, the horrors of the Syrian civil war, another outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza were rekindled by the Iraq War.

CAL: Apples and oranges, Bob. Great empires collapse from within before they are conquered from without, or just expire under the weight of debt and decadence. Think of ancient Rome, Spain, Persia, Babylon and, more recently, Britain, which faces further shrinking if the Scots approve a separation referendum on Sept. 18.

BOB: Those empires tried to dominate the world, mostly by military aggression. The United States has never sought to be an empire. We became a country by defeating the British Empire. The debt and decadence you mention in those other empires can hardly be compared with the U.S. debt problem. America's domestic problems are our problems. Yes, many are of our own doing, but they are not those of an empire.

CAL: When a nation loses a moral center, it loses its reason for being. There is a pattern to the decline of great societies. Sir John Bagot Glubb, a British general and historian, wrote about it in his book The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. He said they begin with pioneers exploring new lands, then conquests of those lands, followed by the age of commerce, the age of affluence, the age of intellect, the age of decadence and then the age of decline and collapse. America seems positioned between decadence and decline.

BOB: Those factors are true for empires seeking to dominate the world, which we have no interest in. The U.S. has the best university system in the world, the largest economy with the most affluent citizens. You and I may see parts of the American culture as decadent, but the non-Muslim world cannot get enough of it.

CAL: Sir John noted that during the age of intellect, academia produces skeptical intellectuals who oppose the values and religious beliefs of its founders. Add to this what he called the corrosive effects of material success. The modern media glorify promiscuous sex and everything else that would have shocked our grandparents, another cause of our decline. I am reminded of a verse in the Book of Judges: "In those days Israel had no king. Everyone did as he saw fit." Isn't this modern America?

BOB: This is not our grandparents' generation. Generations move on. Each generation develops its own values and cultural icons. I agree the media are obsessed with the worst parts of cultural landscape. We may see that as a sign of decline, but the majority of Americans embrace it, as do billions worldwide. Where you and I see our materialistic culture as a sign of decline, we are in the minority.

CAL: Minorities can be right. Nations rarely come back once decline reaches the serious stage, but comebacks are not unprecedented. They don't come through the institutions that have contributed to the decline. The U.S. has experienced three "revivals" since becoming a nation in which massive numbers of Americans were converted and decided to live differently. Like the one in the mid-19th century that helped America heal from the Civil War, they occurred when people engaged in what scholar and preacher J. Edwin Orr called "a concert of prayer." Revivals break out when an authority higher than government decides to rescue people from their wrong choices. Without a revival, we might be doomed.

BOB: At the heart of the "America in decline" theory is the inability of a polarized political system to confront the nation's problems and find common ground. The Pew poll in June reminds us that the political extremes driving polarization are a minority. Their activism and money cause gridlock, while "the majority ... believe their representatives in government should meet halfway to resolve contentious disputes." Until that majority demands common ground, this silly notion of "America in decline" will continue. Which is why, my friend, we write!

CAL: We agree on polarization, but that is not a cause of our decline; it is a reflection of something much deeper.